Posted on 05/23/2004 2:28:25 PM PDT by ReveBM
I know this is a very unserious topic, but I have been looking for a War on Terror/US friendly computer game.
I have played "America's Army", but that doesn't really have a plot.
I have been a fan of the Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six series, but I have been REALLY PISSED OFF that Team Rainbow is presented as an arm of the United Nations. Also, frequently enough, the terrorists are neo-Nazis rather than islamofascists. I'm also annoyed at having the option of choosing Europeans from France, Germany or other Iraq-war wimps for my anti-terror forces (though I have sometimes enjoyed placing them in my B-teams for suicidal assaults/cannon fodder - "Oh, Luc is laid up in the hospital again after the grenade accident? So sad".
I was somewhat hopeful for another tactical shooter that came out a year or so back called "Splinter Cell", but was turned off that the main baddie was a megalomaniac Christian in the Soviet Republic Georgia. Come on, can no one call a spade a spade in this world without being politically correct?
I'm tired of shooting aliens. I'm not interested in global, un-brokered solutions. I know the face of the islamofascist enemy when I saw it clearly on September 11th. Are there no red-blooded American computer game designers out there?
The other side has its computer game designers. Some of you may have read about a game called "Kaboom" that was produced by some (Palestinians?) where you are a terrorist bomber and your objective is to maneuver yourself amidst civilians undetected, and then blow yourself up. Reportedly you are then presented with a screen showing "Contratulations - you have killed 25 people and wounded 50! A new high score!"
I want my meat red. I don't care if they play the Star Spangled Banner at the beginning of the game. I don't mind if they interweave the game with bouts of boredom or difficulty, such as just a routine patrol where you're trying not to get your ass blown off by an I.E.D. (i.e. nothing to shoot at, you just try to avoid getting killed). I wouldn't mind added complexity for economics or politics, such as "Congratulations, you are the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority and have to try to fuse dissident Iraqi factions together to form a new nation, while combatting a terrorist insurgency." Games like this have been created before, like "El Presidente" from the 1980s, where you had to manage life as a government head in a Central American nation amid Communist-backed violence (they included right-wing death squads in the game two, and liberation theology priests which would get killed off).
Games have been able to attack complex subjects in the past, without just battling aliens or attracting seamy interest such as "Grand Theft Auto". Obviously the designers must not be willing to take risks, as more and more designers are owned by corporations now (not to mention that most designers are probably Howard Dean supporters).
Lastly, may I interject the word "propoganda", in a positive sense. Call it Voice of America or "psychological operations" if you want. A well-designed, patriotic game, could subconsciously tell the Bush Administration's side of the story, just in a different medium. A really fun, absorbing game wouldn't have to present things in a heavy-handed manner to be effective.
I am not a whiz with computer design, so this is not something that I myself could do. I will have to satisfy my patriotic twitchy-fingers by playing a period piece such as "Medal of Honor - Allied Assault" where I just battle Nazis. Yawn.
Maybe if we are successful in the War on Terror after a generation someone looking back will write a good game for me to play when I'm in the retirement home.
Interesting.
Bookmarking this to see if it gets any action....
( I play "The Sims" and sometimes "Tropico")
Let's see.
I am currently playing 'Battlefield 1942', with the free 'Desert Combat' mod. Briefly, it's US vs. Iraqis in desert and urban terrain. No plot whatsoever, but a BLAST to play online. You can drive/fly/sail any vehicle that you find. Realism is a bit compromised for playability. That said, it's just plain fun. Learning to fly the helicopters takes a lot of offline practise, but once you have it-- you can be truly dangerous with an Apache.
http://www.desertcombat.com
Also in the same vein, the Conflict: Desert Storm i and 2. Coalition (US or British) special operations against Iraqis.
Good small-unit team control and resource management.
http://www.conflict.com/default.asp
Also, bookmark Rushian's excellent shooter site,
http://www.specforce.net/LoRes.htm
for a ton of info on what's out there.
And there are no PC what-nots in it.
No, I haven't done Ghost Recon. Thanks for the suggestion. Also, that specforce.net above looks very interesting.
BFL
I belong to an online gaming clan that specifically plays desert combat, the mod to battlefield 1942 and I have to say that it is the only game I play now, and Ive played many. I usually only play online and have met many people, both US and abroad. If you get a chance, get in the game, and also, if your good at it, join a clan!
Check out Battlefield 1942 and its successor, Battlefield Vietnam.
I enjoyed Medal of Honor immensely. If nothing else, it made me respect our troops even more for their courage, skill and determination in combat. In just the MoHAA D-Day landing, I must have been killed about 50 times (probably more) before I ever made it to the Nazi bunker...
Yup, I mentioned DC in my post # 3. Loads of fun. I am with an online team, but since we don't have our own server, I play on a server similar to the one you've described. I play there under a different handle. Wonder if we know one another from there. :-)
Yep ...Ghost Recon is very very good. And the latest is supported on-line ....just in case you want to whoop real guys. Let me say the game has never let me down.
I'm not sure how I would do in bouts with any of you. I'm sure I would be given assignments like "run up that hill [and die] to distract the enemy." Or "organize these weapons, clips and items by type and stack them up so we can find them when we get back."
I suggest you don't get Battle Fields 1942 or BF: Vietnam. Those games are so "arcadey" that it is on the level of 12 year olds. Killing a Tiger tank with a Colt .45 is just stupid. If you want a WWII game, try WWII Online although the U.S. is not currently represented.
When will the US be in the game? 2005? I guess I could get into playing the Brits. Not the French, though. I would flip to the German side before I'd do that.
I don't know. The game one day will have the war covering the entire globe but that is years away. Right now the only part is the Western Front, 1940 (Invasion of France). When I played the game, I played as the Germans. (There is no trace of the Nazis as it would prohibit the game from being sold in most of Europe.) The allies seemed to be mostly kids and were the side that whined and threatened to quit whenever they lost too much. I don't know how the game is now as I'm banned for life due to a "disagreement" with one of the creators.
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